Age of Heroes
Religion *Society *Culture Groups *Economics *Technology *Education - Trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric), Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy) *Warfare Time Frame It is well known that Rome dominated the Mediterranean region from around 200 B.C.E. until its conquest in 476. What is not so well known is that around the time the Empire stopped expanding (ca. 200), many of the regions bordering it entered what are known as heroic ages. The Irish Ulster cycle, centering around Conchobar, traditionally took place during the first century. At the same time, a wave of Germanic tribes invaded Europe from the east and in the process initiated their own heroic age - Beowulf, Hrolf Kraki, and Sigurd all had cycles focusing around them. By 410, Rome itself had been sacked. The next few decades saw the Roman Empire deteriorate until Rome itself was conquered by the Ostrogoths in 476. This led to a British heroic age, of which Arthur was the center. Whereas the Irish heroic age seems to have lasted roughly a generation, the Germanic went into the sixth century - we know that both Beowulf and Hrolf Kraki date to that period - and only came to a close with the development of stable kingships. The British age lasted into the seventh century, when their kingdoms’ boundaries and dynasties stabilized. Significant Traits The heroic age marked the end of an era that had been noteworthy for centuries of stable trade, government, roads, currency, and culture. It came with a few hundred years of famines, plagues, raiding, and conquests. At the center of these ages were simple chieftains, many of whom are still remembered. None of these individuals probably controlled any more than a few hundred square miles, but they did inspire their peers with their accomplishments while their professional historians, bards and skops told stories about them. Christianity had become the state religion during the Roman period, but would become entrenched during the Age of Heroes as it rapidly spread through the British Isles and among the Germanic peoples. By the late seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of Europe. Major Events In around 367, the Roman Empire started bringing Germanic tribes over to Britain to act as foederati, an auxiliary military force to combat piracy and raiding on the island. The agreement involved the Empire giving gathered food and supplies from the province to the them in exchange for their services. In 409 the last Roman general in Britain, Constantine, took the title of emperor and invaded the continent. As part of his promotion the Roman government there was overthrown and replaced by his own officials. When he died in 411, the government was again overthrown. This led to a fracturing of the former province. A reduction of food and supplies to foederati throughout the Empire, which led to the sacking of Rome in 410. This weakened the prestige of the Roman Empire forever and breaking the psychological hold of the empire over the Germanic tribes as an immortal and all-powerful artifice. In the middle of the fifth century, possibly 441, local efforts to maintain a supply of food and supplies to the foederati failed. This led to a Germanic revolt after which their clans established control over individual villages along the eastern coast and claimed the needed materials as a tribute. In 451, Attila lost the Battle of Chalons-sur-Marne, and he died two years later. Attila had united most of the Germanic tribes under his banner. His death dispersed them again and initiated an era known as the heroic age in which famous people like Hrolf Kraki, Beowulf, Arthur, Sigurd, and Theodoric would thrive. In 476 the city of Rome fell to the Ostrogoths. The Empire's western holdings were quickly taken up by various tribes. Several had already occupied Britain, while the Visigoths took Spain, the Ostrogoths settled in the rest of Italy, the Lombards and Franks were the main tribes in France, and so forth. In the late fifth century the first British kingdoms would emerge from what had been Roman Britain. These were localized responses to continued expansion by the Germanic tribes. The re-establishment of British kingdoms would give the British a decided advantage until the mid-sixth century, when the Germanic peoples would develop their own kingships. Their access to better farmland meant they could feed more warriors with the same amount of land and put larger armies on the field of any battle. The next few centuries would see the consolidation of Frankia, Spain, and Portugal though dozens of kingdoms continued to exist in Italy, Germany, and Britain until well after about 650, when the Age of Heroes ended. Religion There were four primary religions and several cult followings in post-Roman Britain - an underground Mother Earth religion, traditional Celtic, Christianity, the religion of the Germanic peoples, and following of Mithras and Belatacudros. Mother Earth We know very little about this religion, which was likely practiced well away from settlements. It seems to have been a natural development of the Great Goddess religion, taking into account a knowledge of the male element in reproduction and intolerance of both the new religion and the more traditional beliefs of the Celts. At the center of the religion was the replenishing quality of the planet, both in its flora and fauna. Worship groups appear to have been formed into covens of witches. At holidays, definitely the spring equinox but possibly during other times during the year, a simple ritual was performed. A male was ritually sacrificed and placed into a cauldron. He re-emerged as a young male. The ritual was deeply symbolic. The choice of male was because of the reproductive nature of the phallus as opposed to the consistent fertility of women. The young male represented the new year, spring, a time of new life. It was believed that our planet was like a person, growing old over the course of a year until it had to be sacrificed in order to make way for the new. We have no name to associate with the female element in these rituals, so that it is possible that there was none. The male seems to have varied by region - we know of Belatacudros and Cernunnos, the latter of which was associated with crows and ravens and shown with a stag’s horns. These were the updated versions of the Young and Dying God of the oldest agricultural civilizations. Over the course of the Middle Ages, practitioners of this religion would become known as witches, to be hunted down and murdered. Their chief holidays were the winter and summer solstice and the spring and autumn equinox, just like the people of the ice age. Celtic Religion The historical invasions were a part of Celtic mythology. It was believed that the giants of myth were descendants of an earlier race known as the Fomorians while the fairies represented another. The former group were active in this world and perceived as representations of the destructive force of nature - like the Jotuns of Norse mythology or the Titans for the Greeks. And like them, the Fomorians had probably been nature-worshipping people. The latter group were said to live in an Otherworld. The Fomorians combatted with the Celts' gods, the Tuatha de Danaan, so that the Irish were aware of them but did not have to worry about them in their daily lives. Fairies were more problematic, but they did not actively seek out humans. On their festival days they would emerge from their sidh to celebrate. If a person happened upon them, the fairies would invite them to their home, where there were boundless wonders and no one ever aged. Technology, beauty, and wealth were believed to be the treasures of the fairies. The catch was that when a mortal went with the fairies he could never return. A day there might be a century in the real world, so that anyone trying to return would turn to dust. Just because the gods were not active in mortals’ lives didn’t mean they weren’t aware, and didn’t need to be respected. We know of regular sacrifices to the gods via drowning, immolation, hanging, and beheading. We do not know the occasion, or even to which god(s) they were sacrificed too, though. We have no way of knowing if they sacrificed captured warriors during internecine conflicts, but they did impale the heads of Roman soldiers during the Boudiccan Revolt. Votive offerings of warrior armaments were also common. Also, the occasional articles of jewelry, bowls, torques, and coins have been found mainly in rivers, lakes, and bogs. It is feasible that water gods may have been associated with warfare, but this would not explain the other objects. The simple fact that objects can disappear and therefore provide the illusion of having been taken might have been the Celts’ reason to use water for sacrifices. Bodies of water might have been used for all gods. There was one aspect of everyday life that did revolve around the supernatural, and that was Celtic kingship. In a continuation of pre-Celtic thinking, the land was considered to be a living entity. When a king assumed the throne, part of the coronation ceremony involved his symbolic marriage to the land, in the form of a woman. For the Celts, the marriage meant the same sort of relationship to be found in most ancient cultures, that the land gave up its independence to her new lord. However, Celtic lands were accorded some power. Legend had it that if a king proved himself unworthy through cowardice, poor legal judgments, or by losing any portion of his body the land would grow barren. Symbolically, this meant that his wife would turn into an old hag. She would only regain her former beauty when the old king had been sacrificed and thrown into a bog and she was married to the man of her choice. The Druids seem to have been a unique entity in Celtic affairs, credited as lawyers, teachers, and magicians. We know they were exempt from military and political responsibilities. They acted as priests during ceremonies and were believed to possess supernatural knowledge not unlike a shaman. Apart from this, we know very little about them apart from Roman and Christian propaganda. Roman records indicate there was a campaign to wipe them out during the Roman occupation, even though there is no suggestion that the druids were responsible for any revolt. This suggests there was something about them their inherent beliefs or actions that threatened rule. Apart from that, we know only that they were associated with the oak tree and mistletoe. The Celtic peoples held that the head was not only the center of a person's intelligence but also its emotions and soul. As such it was popular in art; stone heads dot the modern landscapes of Britain and Ireland. In warfare, the head held a deeply symbolic meaning. Worthy opponents were often beheaded after death, the skulls collected in trunks or stone trophy cases and shown to visitors. The dead among them would be put on stakes and used as protection of the camp or fortress. Cedar oil was used as a preservative. Instead it was believed that a soul would find a body most suited to it, so a good warrior would find his way to a warrior's family while a farmer would find his way back to the land. The belief in transmigration was so strong among the ancient Celts that they were occasionally known to makes bets and take loans that would be paid in the next life. Christianity The new faith came to Britain in the first century. As with the rest of the Roman Empire, believers spread their faith as fast as possible. Enjoying periods of alternative popularity and official , there are indications of Christians temples as well as the chi-rho symbols of people well before the fifth century. Public crosses, standing up to 25 feet high, were decorated with scenes from the Bible, making it possible to illustrate stories to an audience that didn’t need to read. The spread of Christianity continued well into the post-Roman period, with “saints” like David, Columba, Dubricius, and Samson coming into contact with and making the attempt to convert them. The Christianity of Britain and Ireland was organized differently than on the continent. In France, Italy, Spain, and elsewhere priests guided local flocks, bishops were assigned to metropolises, and the primary bishops were in Rome, Antioch, Constantinople, and the other major cities of the Mediterranean region. As the offices grew higher, the social and political influences grew as well. In this setting, abbots served merely as the keepers of ancient knowledge and as the leaders of monasteries. Abbots in Britain and Ireland possessed the political and social influence. Patrick, Gildas, Dubricius, Cadoc, and Illtud were some of the best educated and most sought after people of their generations. They taught generation after generation of princes and highly intelligent peasants. By contrast, bishops were in charge of administration. That Christianity could have developed so differently was a result of the political situation in Britain beginning in the fifth century. With the breakdown in Roman government beginning in around 410, the Germanic sea raiders that had preyed on Roman shipping for decades came to dominate the English Channel. This did not altogether stop trade and communications to and from the continent, but it did allow the Britons and with them the Irish to ignore whatever alterations were made to the Christian faith and to organize the religion in whatever manner they chose. The personal magnetism of leaders like Patrick and Cadoc largely led to the latter, while ignoring the synods of the fifth century on also allowed the Celts to retain some of their more ancient and less acceptable practices. There were four basic differences. * Tonsure: The shaving of one's head so that the remaining hair looks like a halo came into style on the continent, but was not picked up until after the Council of Whitby. * Easter: The Celts all used a modified form of St. Jerome's method, called Celtic-84 after the number of years in each cycle. A slightly different way of calculating the holiday was proposed by Victorius of Aquitaine and later Dionysius Exiguus but was not immediately known by the British, Picts, and Irish. They were made aware of it in 602 and had all conformed by 716. * Penance: The prevailing continental custom was that confession was made publicly. On the British Isles it was done privately with a priest. * Peregrinatio: What had been meant as living a life separated from the material world while waiting for the afterlife became, among the Irish and British, an act of physically moving. It was common for churchmen to move from their homes, often leaving the island of their birth. Monasteries were considered a more extreme way to being closer to God. For that reason, the portions of alcohol and meat a monk was allowed to have during the course of a day was spelled out in the basic laws, or rules, of each monastery. Some, following David and Uinniau of Moville, kept to a diet of strictly water and bread except under unusual circumstances, whereas the rules of most were more relaxed. In general, the diet of a typical monk was probably the healthiest of any person in the Middle Ages. Food was not the only aspect of the Rule. The amount of time spent growing crops, the tools allowed in working the ground, and the amount of outside help (slaves or freeman) that a monastery accepted were all laid out. Monasteries were also a means of screening the monks from the outside world. This was not always possible, however, as the medieval Celtic monastery was a teaching establishment. Hermits were fairly common as a more isolationist approach to monasticism. As Roman government and secular Roman teachers disappeared in Britain, monasteries began to take up the slack. They welcomed the exceptionally intelligent from the lower classes as potential ecclesiastics and accepted princes from royal families and the wealthy as a means of balancing costs and helping the monastery. It was not uncommon for the most prominent intellects to travel between monasteries to discuss the ideas of the day, or to carry on correspondence. Depending on the Rule of the monastery, a monk might be expected to spend a good portion of his time copying the manuscripts of passed thinkers. For a monk this could be a means of expanding the monastery library, but it was also a way for the monk to learn. Requesting a specific manuscript from another monastery invited learning and discussion. It also led to the preservation of many manuscripts that would otherwise have been lost during the Middle Ages. Of course this also meant that reads that interested monks had a better chance of survival than those that did not. Olympiodorus' histories contain many valuable insights into the ancient world that are gone forever, whereas Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful history of Britain has more extant copies than any other medieval work outside of the Bible. Because of their diet, relative isolation, and the general cleanliness of the monastery, religious people were some of the healthiest of the period. Whereas it was rare for a layman to live into their fifties, many religious people may have lived beyond 80. One of the most prevalent beliefs of the Middle Ages was in Lilith, the first wife of Adam who had refused to be obedient to him and instead escaped from him. The archetypal bad woman, she was believed to seduce men in order to produce demons and to kill human children. Hebrew myth commonly labeled her a beast or demon herself. Germanic Religion When the Germanic tribes invaded northern Europe during the Roman Empire they successfully meshed their gods with the natives creating a religion with two families of gods, one focused on protecting humans from the jotuns (Aesir) and a second more interested in culture (Vanir). This was further diversified by tribal gods. Among those who migrated to Britain, these deities had slightly different names but performed largely the same functions. Woden was the king of the gods. His crows were said to watch Jotunheim for any activity leading up to Ragnarok. He was often named as the father of a dynasty. Thunor or Donar, god of thunder, was known to go on raids in Jotunheim to keep the enemy off balance - he was listed as the normal dynastic head. Tiw represented honor, as he sacrificed his right hand in recompense for binding the Fenris Wolf. Baeldaeg‘s original identity is unknown, but once the Germanic peoples were Christianization he became a Christ-figure. He normally follows Woden in the genealogies. Seaxnot was the tribal god of the Saxons, his name translates as “Helper of the Saxons”. Among the less important gods, the trio of women known as Norns were the Germanic equivalent of the fates; their festival day was December 25, considered the end of the year as their winter solstice. Hretha translates as glory. Eostre was a spring goddess, as attested by numerous votive offerings and Bede. Germanic kingship had an association beyond the gods, however. Like the Celts, the Germanic peoples also believed that royal families had a form of divine luck, which they called mana. It was thought that royal families had been given good fortune in the land’s fertility, raids, trading, and rule. When a king died, the man believed to have the clan’s strongest mana was elected the new king, probably by popular assembly. Culture Groups *Britons: The British had been the second group of Celtic speakers to invade Britain, arriving some time after the eighth century B.C.E. Known as the P-Celts, they had taken over the island apart from the highlands by the time of the Roman invasion. Romano-Britons, their descendants, occupied the same area. Around 443, the Germanic foederati rebelled against them and took over the southern and western coastal regions. During the fifth century they would steadily lose ground to them. *Germanic: The Germanic peoples began the period settled along the eastern coast up to Lothian and the southern coast to the Isle of Wight, always near the coast. By 600 they had moved into ost of England and co HistoryEdit The Germanic tribes in Britain were a part of a major continental movement that occurred during the last century of Roman rule, called the Age of Migrations. They made up t separate groups in Britain. The first had been invited by the Romans to serve as foederati, tribesmen allowed to retain their tribal identity as they kept the English Channel free of pirates in return for food and supplies for themselves and their families. These tribesmen would remain loyal to Rome as long as the locals were able to supply them. When they could no longer do so they would revolt, transforming the local villages that had been their employers into subservient settlements. The second group arrived after the dissolution of the foederati and the cessation of all anti-pirate activities. These tribes would migrate from the continent for the express purpose of claiming land. This they would do, pushing ever further into the interior until the rise of British kingdoms forced them to stop towards the end of the fifth century. *Anglo-Saxon: The language spoken by the Germanic invaders of Britain. Tribes included the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, and Frisians. *Irish: The native language of Ireland, it was a Q-Celtic language. *Latin: The language of the Romans, of culture, and of the Christian ecclesiastics. *Pictish: The native language of the highlands, the Picts spoke a Q-Celtic language. Celtic *Calan Gaeaf *Calan Mai *Gŵyl Awst *Gŵyl Fair y Canhwyllau Christianity *All Souls' Day *Candlemas *Christmas *Easter *Epiphany *Festival of Fire *May Day *Michaelmas *Midsummer Eve *Saints' Days *St. Crispin's Day *Saint John’s Day Germanic *Lammas *Litha *Ostara *Winter Nights *Yule Art *Bard *British Designs *Hanging Bowl *Manuscripts *Ornamental Techniques *Pictish Symbols *Skop In the post-Roman period, British art became a synthesis of old Celtic and Roman designs and symbols. The famous Celtic triquetra, the fascination with the head, the connection of water with holiness, and the Pictish symbols were variously joined with Christian icons, manuscripts, and Roman motifs to form a unique blend that can still be seen, most notably in surviving manuscripts. The era also generated an oral history steeped in history and culture in the bards of the Celts and the shops of the Germanic peoples. Using various pneumonic devices, audience techniques, rhyme schemes, and relying on their intensive training these oral "historians" were famed for their ability to quickly create moving and intricately rhymed poetry. The bard Aneirin is said to have composed all the many stanzas of the poem Y Gododdin before the morning after the battle of Catraeth. Culture Groups *Germanic Tribes *Irish *Picts Settlements *Aberffraw *Alo Cluathe *Arfderydd *Brefi *Caermalleator *Camboglanna *Candida Casa *Clonard *Clonmacnoise *Din Peledyr *Dol *Iona *Llan Gildas *Llancarfan *Llanilltud *Luguvalium *Moville *Nant Pawl *Pulag *Rayadr Kingdoms *Aeron *Airer Goide *Bernech *Calchvynedd *Cornouailles *Cornwall *Fib *Foirtrinn *Glywising *Gododdin *Guenodotia *Gueroc *Gwyngwn *Lleuddinyawn *Lleuenydd *Manaw *Môn *Nouoantae *Pecse *Reged *Selgouia *Strat Clut *Vannes LAKES RIVERS *Cluathe SEAS Culture In an era where places of learning were looted and no government was stable, culture suffered. Many of the Roman and Briton advances and intellectual accomplishments were forgotten. They weren't lost though, they were preserved in manuscripts. Monasteries were subject to raids by the Germanic peoples up until the sixth century, but their manuscripts were borrowed by any other monastery that had someone curious to read them. In the process they copied the document, preserving it against raids or simple bad luck, like fires. In monasteries throughout Europe the works of Aristotle, Boethius, Augustine, and Cicero survived, among many others. Works that were well known, like books of the Bible, were often carefully decorated. The Lindesfarne Gospels is perhaps the best remembered of these works. Because of the focus on preservation, however, very few new works were made. Gildas is considered one of the greatest writers of the sixth century but his style was classical, looking backward, instead of British, looking forward. He was not alone. Everywhere any culture that survived did so in Latin. Because of the innate respect for Latin, anything Roman was appreciated on a much deeper level than anything native. For this reason, what we do have of British, Pictish, Irish, and Germanic folklore and mythology is paltry. Technology Homes were made of wattle and daub and armor was primarily leather. Medicine went from being an art and a science taught in Roman schools to the use of a random group of potions and herbs learned from trial and error as well as superstition. During the Dark Ages, the pursuit of knowledge was considered witchcraft and could be punished by burning or drowning for their ties to the devil. This was especially true of women who, following the writings of Paul, were supposed to be supportive to men but to never work on anything too intellectual for fear it might make them sterile. They were especially not to have independent minds. Nor was there much chance of revitalizing culture or technology, or generating thinking. Trade remained at the local level, but with the constant worry of bandits, raiders, and pirates it slowed to a trickle. Cornwall alone, because of its tin deposits, was a regular stop during the period. CURRENCY A medley of bartering and money was in effect among the Celtic and Germanic peoples of the island. The exchange rate was based off the female slave/milking cow/silver equivalency. KINGSHIP Kingship varied by period as well as culture. Views on the nature of the office, its relationship with the land, and the supernatural were just as important as the personal aspects. *Arglwyd *Bard *cattle raids *Feasting *Gwledig *Hill-Fort *Hounds *King's Champion *King's Hall *Porter *Royal Hunting PEASANTS *Beekeeping *Blacksmith *Bragawt *Camisa *Sub-Roman Farming *Carpenter *Mead *Mouldboard Plow *Thatching *Wattle and daub SHIPS *Cwrwgl *Merchant Ship WARRIORS A warrior's personal accoutrements would vary based on personal wealth, gifts from the king, and items scavenged from the battlefield *Armor *comitat *helmet *Heroic Age *Scramasax *Shield *Spatha *Spear *teulu IRISH *Ardri *Ri Tuaithe GERMANIC *Karvi Education *Apprentice *Journeyman *Master *Trivium *Quadrivium *Philosophy *Theology Economics What follows is a very rough equivalence table, subject to changes locally, by year, and various conditions of the local property or economy. 1 oz. Silver Female Slave Milch Cow Pence Bushel Beer 12 12 12 2160 Bushel Cheese 5 5 5 900 Bushel Coal 15 15 15 2700 Bushel Flax 1/2 1/2 1/2 90 Bushel Grain 5 5 5 900 Bushel Mead 15 15 15 2700 Bushel Nuts 4 4 4 720 Bushel Tin 20 20 20 3600 Bushel Vegetables 4 4 4 720 Chain Mail 28 28 28 5040 Dagger 1 1/2 1 1/2 1 1/2 270 Dog 3 3 3 540 Female Slave 1 - 1 180 Fish 1/20 1/20 1/20 9 German Sword 20 20 20 3600 Goat 1/12 1/12 1/12 15 Hawk 12 12 12 2160 Horn 6 6 6 1080 Horse 3 3 3 540 In-Calf Cow 2/3 2/3 2/3 120 Jewelry 10 10 10 1800 Leather Cuirass 4 1/2 4 1/2 4 1/2 810 Metal Plates 11 11 11 1980 Metal Shield 6 6 6 1080 Milch Cow 1 1 - 180 Ox 1/6 1/6 1/6 30 Pig 3 3 3 540 Plough 6 6 6 2160 Pound Honey 1/12 1/12 1/12 15 Sheep 1/15 1/15 1/15 12 Shield with Leather 1 1/2 1 1/2 1 1/2 270 Short Sword 17 17 17 3060 Spear 1 1 1 180 Uncia 10 10 10 1800 Wooden Shield 1 1 1 180 Yearling 1/4 1/4 1/4 45